Selected Clients

ICF has supported hundreds of clients, across the globe, in nearly every major industry including energy, transportation, manufacturing, high technology, hospitality, internet and media, financial services, and life sciences. A few of our clients’ successes are outlined below.

BP
Carbon Trust
Caterpillar
Chevron/Texaco
Dell
Duke Energy
Dupont
eBay
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Fiji Water
Fujifilm
GlaxoSmithKline
HSBC
Intuit
JP MorganChase
Kimberly Clark
Kimpton Hotels
McAfee
News Corporation
Pew Center on Global Climate Change
Rio Tinto
Rolls Royce
Shell
Toyota
Warner Brothers
WESCO
World Bank
Yahoo!

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

For more than ten years, ICF has been involved in promoting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) ENERGY STAR® program. Projects have ranged from strategic communications and advertising to product specification development and testing to market research on the acceptance of energy efficiency in housing and development.

ICF's use of co-promotions with program partners such as Goodyear and Food Lion have yielded several hundred million impressions of program messages throughout the country for ENERGY STAR.
Our support to EPA through product, market, and energy data analysis has resulted in the development of more than 20 ENERGY STAR labeled products, including the specification for the first ENERGY STAR qualified computers, telephony, ceiling fans, and commercial food service equipment.
ICF's research and analysis on the needs and preferences of stakeholders in the home building and buying process helped us identify factors hindering market acceptance of energy efficiency in housing. Our findings turned to actions that are increasing market acceptance of energy-efficient housing and public awareness of the benefits of energy-efficient purchases.

ICF International continues to provide EPA with value-added services that help strengthen the ENERGY STAR program and position us as leaders in this green revolution.

FIJI Water Case Study

Client Goal

ICF International was involved in the review of a full life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory for Fiji Water, one of the fastest growing premium bottled water brands in the world. The carbon footprint included detailed Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions, including production, company-operated vehicles, energy consumption in facilities, raw materials manufacturing, transport of materials and products to warehouses and customers, recycling, customer disposal, and other life cycle emissions, going significantly beyond current standard practice for corporate environmental footprints.

Fiji Water, natural artesian water bottled at the source in Viti Levu (Fiji islands), is the second largest imported bottled water brand in the United States. The company was interested in verifying its carbon footprint as a key part of its Sustainable Growth Initiative and goal to become carbon negative.

Fiji Water also asked ICF to identify and summarize opportunities for improvement in its carbon footprint. The areas of improvement identified helped Fiji Water further develop its comprehensive and transparent carbon footprint.

ICF Solution

ICF International helped Fiji Water review and improve the accuracy, completeness, and transparency of its carbon footprint. As Fiji Water had already dedicated itself to develop a full life cycle emissions inventory, ICF helped Fiji confirm that the boundaries and sources of emissions were covered and appropriately measured and calculated. ICF confirmed the reasonableness (relevance, completeness, consistency, transparency, and accuracy) of Fiji's statements regarding its GHG emissions. ICF then determined whether the GHG statement had been prepared, in all material respects, in accordance with the specified calculation methodology, and whether the underlying data used in the calculation of the GHG emissions and baseline intensity were free of material errors.

Results

ICF International's broad experience with corporate environmental footprints, including its deep expertise with inventory review and life cycle emissions was key to the assignment's success and depth of completeness. ICF was able to work collaboratively with Fiji Water through the process to discuss all relevant aspects of Fiji's carbon footprint and ways to improve the accuracy and transparency of the footprint and the reporting of its results.

Learn more about Fiji Water's carbon footprint.

Fujifilm Holdings America Corporation Case Study

Client Goal

Recognized globally for its technological innovation, high quality, and rigorous adherence to clean technology best practices, Fujifilm Holdings America Corporation (Fujifilm) offers a complete portfolio of imaging, information, and document products and services. The company invests more than $2.5 billion annually in research and development (R&D) and, based on a vast portfolio of digital, optical, fine chemical, and thin film coating technologies, has expanded its scope in recent years far beyond its traditional photo imaging roots. Today, Fujifilm provides leading-edge solutions to a broad spectrum of industries including flat panel display materials, medical systems and life sciences, electronic imaging, photo imaging, graphic arts, and office products. The company was ranked number 15 for U.S. patents granted in 2007.

Fujifilm is headquartered in Valhalla, NY. Fujifilm companies in the U.S. serve a range of industries including medical, chemical, graphic arts, electronic materials, optics, recording media, motion picture, and photographic technologies. The companies operate in more than 75 facilities nationwide in 32 states and employ approximately 6,000 people engaged in R&D, manufacturing, sales, and service support.

One of Fujifilm’s key environmental health and safety (EH&S) objectives is to begin reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions within their U.S. operations. Further, due to the linkage between GHG emissions and energy consumption, Fujifilm also seeks to have its facility portfolio assessed for potential energy saving opportunities.

ICF Solution

ICF’s Green Business solution framework served as the basis for Fujifilm’s initial phase of work where the Assess and Design components were successfully executed over an eight-month time period. Specifically, the scope of work entailed:

Assessing the current availability and quality of energy and GHG emissions related data across Fujifilm’s 75 domestic facilities
Calculating the 2006 GHG Inventory and establishing 2006 as the baseline year
Recommending one or more technical solution options for tracking and managing energy consumption and GHG emissions data on an ongoing basis
Identifying and defining an inventory of potential energy saving and GHG abatement projects
Defining the options and economics associated with a full-scale corporate program

Results

Based on the availability of actual, high quality energy and environmental data at Fujifilm, ICF was able to calculate and define an accurate energy baseline and carbon footprint for 2006. In addition, through ICF’s portfolio performance methodology, Fujifilm now has a detailed understanding of the performance spread across their entire facility portfolio in the U.S. Further, based on the portfolio performance analysis, coupled with targeted site visits (i.e., best and worst performing locations), Fujifilm and ICF now believe that energy savings in the 15-20 percent range are achievable. Finally, Fujifilm is now positioned to move forward with the implementation of an enterprise tracking system to manage, analyze, and communicate its environmental performance improvements on an ongoing basis.

http://www.fujifilmusa.com/about/sustainability/index.html

HSBC Group Case Study

Client Goal

On December 6, 2004, HSBC Group committed to becoming the world's first major bank to be carbon neutral. ICF International was engaged to help HSBC set up and run a Carbon Management Task Force and to define and implement a carbon neutrality strategy.

The Carbon Management Task Force's goals were to:

Manage and reduce HSBC direct emissions
Reduce the carbon intensity of the electricity bought by HSBC, where feasible
Offset the remaining emissions in order to achieve carbon neutrality—the offsets were required to be credible, genuinely incremental, and cost effective
Build understanding of the carbon-constrained economy that many HSBC clients face and raise awareness among HSBC stakeholders

ICF Solution

In order for HSBC to meet its strategic objectives, ICF proposed that HSBC diversify the portfolio of carbon offsets according to types of credits, diversify the portfolio between credits acquired from the market and credits developed internally, and acquire credits by launching a public tender. ICF helped HSBC:

Define the screening criteria to be publicized on the tender
Conduct an initial screen against mandatory requirements based on HSBC Carbon Neutral Principles—the credits needed to be credible, incremental, and cost effective
Publicize the tender across several organizations with which ICF has a partnership or membership relationship
Select the projects to be included in the portfolio

In addition, ICF worked on the conceptual definition of a tracking tool for determining whether the acquired carbon credits are enough to meet the reduction target given varying HSBC baseline emissions.

Results

At the end of the assignment, HSBC was able to offset its Group-wide emissions for the last quarter of 2005. To offset the total emissions amount (170,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide plus/minus five percent), HSBC bought 170,000 metric tons of carbon offset credits from four offset projects around the world (New Zealand, Australia, Germany, and India). By September 2005, HSBC declared carbon neutrality for the last quarter of 2005.

It was the first time that a multinational bank implemented an offsetting scheme. ICF was able to use its network of carbon credit offset providers contacts as well as the media to ensure that HSBC's offset program was extremely cost effective on a cost per ton basis (ICF significantly exceeded the target set by HSBC's CEO) and reaped substantial publicity and reputation benefits.

Intuit Case Study

Client Goal

ICF International was involved in the design, analysis, and implementation of an environmental footprint, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water, and waste for Intuit, one of the world's leading software companies. The footprint included a detailed analysis of the company's paper and packaging use and an assessment of the emissions associated with Intuit's software products and packaging.

Intuit is a diverse, multinational company with facilities and customers around the world. The company was interested in expanding the breadth of its environmental footprint to include an examination of Scope 3 supply chain emission sources significantly beyond current standard practice for corporate environmental footprints.

Intuit also asked ICF to design and implement a GHG tracking tool that it could use to identify ways to increase corporate sustainability and to train internal staff to measure the company's environmental performance in future years. ICF's tool for Intuit was designed to be easily teachable to corporate sustainability staff and facility managers and will be used by Intuit as part of its ongoing commitment to corporate sustainability.

ICF Solution

ICF International helped Intuit in understanding implications for its operations of GHG reporting principles according to corporate best practices and in establishing the key elements of its GHG and energy reporting process. Furthermore, ICF helped Intuit establish best practices for measuring corporate waste-related emissions through its analysis of the GHG and waste footprint of the company's software products. ICF then aggregated the company's global CO2, GHG, waste, and energy data to enable Intuit to establish a baseline footprint, identify sustainability opportunities, and measure its environmental progress over time.

Results

ICF International's broad experience with corporate environmental footprints, including its deep expertise with supply chain and waste-related emissions, was key to the assignment's success as ICF was able to quickly expand Intuit's footprint to include all paper, packaging, plastic, and other materials. This allowed for a significantly more sophisticated environmental footprint than current corporate standard practice.

McAfee Case Study

Client Goal

ICF International developed a sustainability strategy and environmental footprint, including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, water, and waste for McAfee's Sales Kickoff event, held annually at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. McAfee is one of the world's leading software companies. The strategy included an assessment of a number of measures McAfee had implemented to improve the environmental performance of the event.

McAfee is a diverse, multinational company with facilities and customers around the world. The company was interested in understanding the sources of environmental impact and carbon emissions associated with holding its annual sales event and determining opportunities to improve the event in future years.

McAfee also asked ICF to develop a list of other green ideas that it can incorporate into future corporate operations and event planning. The strategy developed from this project will help guide McAfee's internal Green Team as it begins an assessment of the company's overall corporate footprint.

ICF Solution

ICF International helped McAfee to understand the environmental implications of its Sales Kickoff event and consider how to incorporate corporate best practices in establishing the key elements of its GHG and energy reporting process. ICF has now laid the groundwork for McAfee to expand its focus and develop a corporate-wide sustainability strategy, which will include the establishment of a corporate footprint and an action plan for emission and footprint-reduction initiatives throughout the company.

Results

ICF International's broad experience with event and corporate environmental footprints, including its deep expertise with supply chain and waste-related emissions, was key to the assignment's success. ICF was able to work collaboratively with McAfee, the MGM Grand, and McAfee's event planning partner to collect all necessary data and assess opportunities for future events, leading to a successful initial greening effort and an important building block for the development of McAfee's sustainability strategy.

Read about the greening of the Las Vegas event.

News Corporation Case Study

Client Goal

ICF International was involved in the design, analysis, and implementation of a greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint for News Corporation, one of the world's largest media companies. The footprint served as the foundation for the company's recently-announced plan to be carbon neutral by 2010.

News Corporation is a multinational and diverse company characterized by different types of emissions sources, geographical dispersion, and organizational segmentation. The company had a particularly demanding time constraint for the implementation of the assignment, requiring two months for designing the GHG protocol and five months for rolling out, testing, and implementing the protocol.

In addition, News Corporation asked ICF to design and implement an electronic database to track all the data supplied by News Corporation companies. The database is flexible and allows external and internal auditing as well as the aggregation and segmentation of data according to different horizontal and vertical layers.

ICF Solution

ICF International assisted News Corporation in understanding implications for its operations of GHG reporting principles according to corporate best practices and in establishing the key elements of its GHG and energy reporting process. Furthermore, ICF defined a methodological framework based on detailed analysis of representative operations at News Corporation, implemented that framework to News Corporation's global operations, and aggregated the global CO2, GHG, and energy data collected through the designed framework.

Results

ICF International's geographic spread was key to the assignment's success as ICF could employ professionals physically located in the same countries or regions as New Corporation's operations. This allowed for a smooth and quick data collection and analysis process.

Read News Corporation's carbon report.

Yahoo! Case Study

Client Goal

Currently, ICF is assisting Yahoo! with its corporate energy and carbon strategies, which has led to Yahoo!'s announcement that it is going carbon neutral. This project includes the following tasks:

Providing energy benchmarking and tracking for Yahoo!'s core facilities
Performing a greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory that includes nearly all emissions for all of Yahoo!'s operations and facilities, domestic and international, including datacenters
Creating an energy management strategy that allows Yahoo! to take its centralized energy data and use it to identify no-cost/low-cost and build portfolio-wide energy efficiency opportunities in office facilities and datacenters
Crafting a carbon strategy that allows Yahoo! to determine what steps it wants to take to mitigate its carbon footprint and assert environmental leadership
Advising Yahoo!'s top management with its selection and purchase of carbon offset project purchases and public messaging options

ICF Solution

ICF has worked to ensure that Yahoo! links all of its energy and climate efforts into an integrated approach in which environmental goals lead to financial savings and risk mitigation.

Results

The project is still ongoing.